CoDA Weekly Reading

THE TWO DERIVATIVES OF AWARENESS

Me as the Codependent Driver of my Disease

Me as the Codependent Co-Navigator of my Disease

And how I recognise and change both those Me’s to better drive and co-navigate my Codependent Car into Recovery!

(phew, quite a mouthful)

Just yesterday I was thinking, what’s that ONE thing which CoDA has given me which I didn’t possess before?

It is the ability to UNDERSTAND my disease and understand how I used to blindly react to pain and fear and shame and guilt and fear of shame and guilt in a self-destructive way in the old days. Even today my first instinct is to act out and self-destruct.

And I usually do that.

But through the understanding of my disease I get AWARE of when I’m acting out.

And just that AWARENESS makes my acting out less intense.

It’s like applying a brake to my Codependent Car speeding out of control.

Awareness is like a gentle brake.

Then again the momentum of my disease makes my

Codependent Car speed on and further self-destruct,

and then more awareness and another brake,

I slow down my self-destructiveness.

And then another awareness comes of how I react to that first awareness.

Like a Co-Navigator (parental me) in that Codependent Car telling the Driver (broken child me) that I’m not driving properly, slow down, brake, etc.

Initially even after understanding my disease I would react to my acting out with self-hatred and shame and guilt. I would tell myself that I am no good in my recovery. The parent navigator telling the child driver he’s useless!!

And then further awareness comes.

As they used to say in good old AA, relapse is part and parcel of the disease and recovery. In CoDA, relapse is even more a part of recovery.

So I catch myself when I shame myself in my reaction to my own relapse.

The navigator parent begins to get a bit more gentle with the child driver.

To me that is the second derivative of AWARENESS.

The first is the Awareness of my disease.

The second derivative is of how I respond and react to that Awareness of my slipping into my disease.

Thanks

Guneet L – 11/25